Billions of dollars were pumped into the project in less than three months. The north Alabama Defense and Space industry infrastructure made a perfect central location for the AS project development and management. The first tactical and strategic suggestion developed from the project was to gather the nation’s space/defense talent at multiple locations across the country and in locations as fortified as possible. Asymmetric Soldier wings were set up at Cheyenne Mountain, in Wyoming, at a base in Montana, at Area 51 in Nevada, at Langley, Virginia, at CCAFS, at Vandenberg AFB in California, at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio, at White Sands, Los Alamos, at Clear Lake City, Texas, at Whiteman AFB in Missouri, at the AFRL in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in two locations in Alaska, at Hickam AFB in Hawaii, at Thule AFB in Greenland, at the old Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico, and three U.S. Navy nuclear submarines and two aircraft carriers were designated as mobile research posts.
Thus far, with no actual data on the threat, AS was mostly spinning its wheels. With no better than the 20 meter resolution they’d gotten from Percival, they couldn’t even determine what the probes looked like. They could be some of the large structures they’d seen on Mars or they could be much smaller. The team had no idea how they moved, how they fought or how they thought. All they could do was look at current and projected military hardware and try to apply it to the little bit they did know. It was a frustrating process. And, deep in their bones, everyone on the team knew it was mostly a fruitless one as well.
The aliens were coming and nothing appeared capable of stopping them.
Chapter 9
“Come in, Major Gries, I’m Alan Davis,” the scientist said, gripping Shane’s hand as he entered his office.
“You guys look busy,” Shane replied. The last time he’d been in Redstone was nearly four months before and it had seemed… sleepy compared to, say, the LockMart facility in Denver.
But from the careful inspection he’d been given at the main entrance to the repeated security checks he’d endured to get to the engineer’s office, the entire tenor of the base had changed. There were more people, all of them looking very distracted, and there was far more bustle. It looked more like a battalion getting ready to cross into “Indian Country” than a research base. And he’d seen signs of defensive emplacements under construction — berms being dug on the periphery of the base, construction on the hill that overlooked the Arsenal — that simply didn’t fit any scenario he could conceive. It looked as if the base was preparing for a siege. And finally, before Gries got any closer to knowing just what the hell was going on, he was asked to sign a shit-load of National Security Act paperwork.
“Okay, Major, you know all the secrecy stuff, I’m told,” Alan said, rolling his chair over to a coffee pot and pouring a cup. “You want?”
“Yes, sir, black, sir,” Shane answered.
“Siddown, and stop calling me sir. I’ve never been in the military, call me Alan — or Mr. Davis if you have to, but Alan is what I prefer,” Alan said, waving at a chair and pouring another cup into a none-too-clean mug. “What I’m about to tell you is going to break internationally sooner or later, but details are still going to be TS Special Access. Clear?”
“Yes, sir, uh, Mr. Davis,” Shane replied, taking the cup and a sip. The coffee was good at least. Whatever these eggheads had figured out, some congressman probably figured it would win him a whole hell of a lot of votes in the north Alabama district, because from the looks of things there was a lot of money being spent around town.
“About a year ago, people started to notice that the albedo of Mars, the light reflected from it, was changing.”
“The gray planet,” Shane said, nodding. “There was a news story about it and I saw some stuff online. But I didn’t really believe any of it. Sounded too much like UFO stuff to me.”
“Well, what is happening is…” Alan said, pausing as the door opened to admit a really good looking blonde. Blue eyes, curly hair, fine butt and tremendous knockers. She looked more like a Hooters waitress than an egghead, but Shane had met some fine looking eggheads over the last few months.
“Roger wanted you to see the changes on Mars and the new images of the Moon right away,” the girl said.
“Major Gries, Traci Adams,” Alan said as the young woman walked behind his desk and hit some keys on his computer. “She’s in our astrophysics department.” He paused to look at whatever was on the monitor, it was turned away from Shane, then blanched. “Jesus Christ. How big is that thing?”
“Over fifty meters in diameter,” Traci replied, tossing her hair over her neck to get at the keys again. “And this.”
“It’s… suspended,” Alan said.
“And this,” Traci continued.
“Crap,” was all Alan said.
“I realize I’m probably not accessed for this…” Shane said diffidently.
“You are now,” Alan said, spinning the monitor around so the major could see it.
The image was, apparently, from the Moon or at least a moon. Airless and gray anyway. But at the edge of a crater was a long… cylindrical object.
“That thing is… how long?” Shane said carefully.
“Just over a hundred kilometers,” Traci repeated. “And it just landed or is landing… it’s hard to tell.”
“Someone landed something a hundred kilometers long on the Moon?” Shane said, closing his eyes. Surprise is a function of the mind of the commander. He knew what he knew. He knew nobody had lift capacity on Earth to do that. He knew it was real; you didn’t get sent off like this by the Army on total bullshit. “We’re being invaded, aren’t we?” he said quietly.
John Fisher and Alice Pike sat quietly in the hotel room watching the latest reality television programming with their respective daughters. Well, the girls were watching television while the parents were trying to work and also spend time with their kids. They had returned to the Cape for spring break, but unfortunately it had rained for the last two days. John and Alice worked during the days and mostly in the nights, while the girls did whatever teenage girls do at the beach during spring break.
Alice sat at the little hotel table pecking at a laptop and peering over it occasionally at the television, then out the window at the pouring rain. John was reading a technical paper on how to increase the space shuttle’s launch capabilities and punching in numbers into a Mathcad simulation on his laptop while at the same time continuously eyeing his wristwatch. The girls lay on their stomachs on the floor in front of the television oblivious to their parents and occasionally poking at each other and giggling.
“I believe it’s gonna rain all week.” Alice glanced out the window at the downpour; she sighed, closed her laptop, rose, then sat on the couch.
“Come over here and sit with me a minute,” she said, motioning for Tina to come sit next to her. She tore off a piece of pizza from the meat lovers thin crust in the pizza box on the coffee table and started to gulp it down. “What time do you have, John?”
“Just enough time for me to refill the ice bucket. Anybody need anything from the soda machine?” John replied, looking at his watch and placing the report and his laptop on the end table.
“Yeah, Daddy, get me a Diet Pepsi will ya?” Charlotte asked.
“Okay slugger. Anybody else?” Nobody responded so John hurried to the vending area. He looked at his watch again, “Five minutes. That’s plenty of time.”